Microsoft Slipped Me a Mickey

 

  So there I was, minding my own business, firing up the old Dell Studio XPS when I noticed Windows was installing something.  Be advised I'm using Win7 Home Edition 64-bit, and everything is already up-to-date as of yesterday.  This is unusual because normally I verify each service-pack, etc., before installing it, even core updates.  It's how I set-up Windows Update software.  For instance, I make sure I don't install "Bing Desktop" because, well, I still prefer Google despite the sad ad campaign Microsoft has been trying to do.  I suspect they sunk a lot of money into it.

 
    There was a lot of updates, something like 16 thousand articles, and it took about 5 minutes.  Mike.. was suspicious.

   I ran two separate virus scans, one locally using Microsoft Essentials (which is rather good an non-intuitive) and then Trend Micro's online virus scan and neither showed anything too nasty, just one or two semi-questionable cookies.  I ran CC-Cleaner by Piriform as well, which I strongly recommend as it does a good job cleaning up the registry in the same way RegClean used to do for Windows XP.  No viruses, a few unpacked .cab files from the last time Windows installed something a month ago.  Windows is naughty that way like several other software companies that don't clean-up after themselves.  To explain, the installed software, if it's big, is compressed into a .zip or .tar or whatever and is uncompressed (like using WinZip internally) and all the fat files come out and play and get installed, but that massive, compressed, original .zip (or .cab or whatever) file is still there, so now you have double (almost) the size of that install now, even though it's done.  By way of comparison, it'd be like some shipping company brought you a refrigerator in a giant box with packing materials on a wooden palate.  They unpack it all and install your fridge, leave the old one, and the box, and the packing materials, and the mess and take off.  Windows loves to do this.  CC-Cleaner takes care of this mess.  There's a pay-version but I'm cheap.  The free one does a decent job nicely.

  So.. I see nothing wrong, but when I open Internet Explorer, I'm sent to a Microsoft home page.  Not good.  My home page is normally set to Google.com.  It is when I immediately check my internet settings.  Some folks hate IE9 but I have no problem with it and I don't find the other browsers all that much faster.  Google Chrome has a good market share right now, but if you combine IE8 with IE9 users, Internet Explorer is still the majority by a long shot, something like 58% (or more, depending on which site you believe in) to G-Chrome's 23%.  I did some tests and IE9 was a few microseconds slower in loading, but I get better compatibility across the board with it, but the argument here of which browser is better is getting off-track, and I use a desktop PC because music creation and recording and pretty much anything useful is much better on a PC than a laptop or tablet for multiple audiophile reasons by a mile (whereas if you're a pure "consumer" and just look at FB and porn and email you'd be better-off with a tablet).

  So the website welcomes me to IE10.  WOT?!  I check my version of Internet Explorer and, sure enough, I have IE10 without my consent.  I avoided it a few months back because the features seemed over-inflated and buggy.  Microsoft secretly made me have IE10 and installed it such that I didn't know about it and made it look a lot like IE9, even though IE10 normally installed doesn't look the same.  It installed my Favorites, etc., and placed my menu bars in the same places.  It did it very very secretly.  I did some research and asked around and some people noticed this as well, that Windows did a night-attack on their systems and installed itself Skynet-style which is a Windows first from what I can remember back since using Win286 (on twelve 5 1/4 floppies).


I used this back in 1988.  It was amazing at the time, and I was in my second year of college at U-Mass at Lowell.

   

 

 I did a little research on how to uninstall IE10 and get back to IE9 and there was some foretelling by prophets that this was going to happen.  It involved putting a blood from a sheep on your front door in the shape of an "X" and pre-installing IE10-"blockers" that would stop the process.  To fix the issue, you can supposedly uninstall IE10 in your Control Panel and IE9 will happily and rather abruptly show back up, but Windows is rather sassy on software reverts and doesn't play nicely and you get some (what my wife technically calls) "headless chickens" on rogue, unexpected programs out there that still believe in their heart of hearts IE10 still exists, tries to talk to it, and .. kaboom.   

  So ... I try out IE10.  Not that bad, actually.  Benchmarks rate it better than G-Chrome on several counts, or on-par, so it's faster in loading junk side-bars.  Sigh.

   Like my vehicles, I keep my computer in tip-top shape, so I make sure everything's running right and perform daily and weekly maintenances, something Apple owners are oblivious of both by way of clever design and company-predicted astounding owner stupidity and non-technical savvy.  When Becky designs her websites, I recommend she dumb-it-down to the lowest-common-denominator because people just want to "click da pic-tchya" than actually read what they're buying, such as on her website www.customseatcreations.com.  Apple excels at this.  Microsoft expects people to have a higher IQ than 12. 

   It's obvious Microsoft is desperate as in my previous blog Desperate Windows.  Their ad campaign is like rich, old, fat people thinking they know what's "hip" and "cool" when, they're so divorced from that concept because all they think about is money and, well, not "hip or cool" that they miss the bus like some Apple Jacks commercial.

  Well, I'd recommend you check your version of Internet Explorer (even if you don't normally use it) because it self-installed on everybody's computer despite settings checked (unless you don't have internet access).  Menu-bar Help >> About Internet Explorer and you'll see.  Interestingly, it also selected the checkbox "Install New Versions Automatically" which I did not assign in IE9 and made sure it was unchecked.  Lovely.  Thanks Microsoft.  You slipped me a Mickey.

Jackpot!

 

   Ever go to WalMart, or Target, or your local grocer, and then you find the cost of the things you bought over a hundred bucks somehow (why has bacon matched the price of gold-per-ounce recently?), then when you swipe your debit card, you get the message "Transaction.. Approved".  It's like hitting the jackpot in many ways for most of us.  Like 105% of America, I too live paycheck to paycheck.  I've heard rumor of someone living in the Samoan Islands that might have not had to do this one month, but most of us are taxed to death and so when a transaction succeeds, it's like winning a "time extension" and makes me want to play the Final Fantasy fanfare and strike an awkwardly Japanese cool-move pose!

 

 

 

James Cagney in The Public Enemy (1931) was the original gangster badass, getting a transaction-declined at a restaurant.  His solution is a bit more.. realistic, and makes a run for it.

 

   There's always that doom that you'll get the dreaded "Transaction Declined" while a huge line of impatient folks are annoyed behind you.  What are you supposed to do?  It's a sweaty time.  Perhaps you have another card to try again, sometimes you do not, and then you can do what I do, which is to run away, arms pinned to my sides like Napoleon Dynamite, yelling, "You'll nevah captchya me alive, coppahs!"





I love how in this picture, the woman in the back is disgusted.. because the purchaser just shit her tight-fitting white summer pants and the smell is mildly off-putting, and the stain.. oh Lord, the stain is expanding, and nothing's gonna ever be the same again sweetie.  Not in this town!  Heh.


 

    Same thing goes for the ATM, for that rare reason you need cash now-a-days.  It's a bit more scary, because you aren't told right-off how much you got.  In the case of WalMart, you can just run away suddenly, screaming your cupcakes are still in the oven or something, but at the ATM, it's more personal and intimate as you have to enter several things before you get to the result, such as the PIN, amount to take out, which account, etc.  We're rewarded this way by the sudden sound of a money counter.  We don't get a happy "Success 100% Win!" optic yummy on the screen, just the sound of a bill counter doing its duty.  I suspect programmers of ATMs don't consider that someone might not have $20 (plus the ATM transaction fee) in their account, but I'd say most Americans know what that's like from time to time, or year to year.  When you're in that slump, and you "win" the $20, it's such a sigh of relief.  Even those who have a few hundred bucks in their account are still probably pretty happy about it that they can withdraw some cash, lest their account be hacked in this wild-west of an internet world with modern-day bank-robberies going on every day (should be a felony, as well as not using a turn-signal, or using a cellphone in any manner while driving, actually, that should be immediate Dredd-style execution for failing to embrace the driving experience fully and hindering the lives of thousands around you..  I hate the ambivalent dummies who mess with my universe.)



There goes Mike digressing again..

I've had a bit of luck over the years, and some perseverance as well to get the things I own.  None of it coming easily like some in Life.  I've had to work hard for all of it, but at least I can value everything I own, as well as every piece of knowledge I sought (unlike smartphone owners never experiencing the joy of a true search-journey and then the reward of discovery at a library, untethered from the effort to actually seek knowledge).   For me, I'm better for it, and stronger.  I myself don't need the internet to know things.  Someday, I hope it goes away for, say, a week, as well as all cellphone coverage and TV.  Just a week.  We'll see how folks get by.












  Maybe I'm alone in this relief, but I doubt it.  I don't make a ton of money and I live rather simply, with a few toys here and there, saved-up or paid on-credit over several years, like most of us.    I suspect, like me, there's that apprehension in every soul right before a transaction as it processes, and when it works, it's a JACKPOT!

Stinky Feet

 

  Some folks are into it; I'm not one of them.  I'm a huge fan of clean feet; well cared-for feet; healthy, normal feet; but I'm not a foot fetishist.  I could care less about them in-general in the same way most folks are indifferent about someone's nose.  Clean and not overly odd-looking?  Sure thing.  Normal.  Fine.


Piper Fawn aka Ariel.. for those interested... (not work safe...)

  The season dictates less clothes, and here in Colorado, there's a bit of eye-candy here and there.  It's nice to see the feminine gender wearing tighter shirts for the most part, and Colorado tends to have healthier people than other states, thanks to, in-part, by a good portion being military whom dictates fitness, mandatory or otherwise.  There are a few "tubs-of-goo" out there, however, particularly retired military who don't give-a-shot anymore, though in my opinion they've somewhat "earned the right" to become a walking candy-bar trash-compactor for their service, fine.  Still, I can't quite bring myself to look like a shar pei.



Get 'er DONE!  Smothered n' covered, baby!

  What concerns me most in this state, however, is a throw-over mostly from California, as there's a ton of transplants from there to here, mostly migrating to Boulder, and that's "sandals".  I dislike sandals, those and open-toed shoes, not because I don't sport them nicely, but that they're incredibly lazy, and, as my topic will amplify, most people have hideous, unhealthy feet, and we're forced to view them in all their diseased ugly.

  I'm not sure why people with clump-feet, dry, broken-looking, cankled, death-feet think it's a good idea to show these off.  It reminds me of the half-shirts worn by girls in the mid-'90s who were as fat as f*ck, gut "muffin-topping" out the way-too-tight pants who's waistline was shortened to be a "hip hugger" variety, emphasizing more tummy and lower back skin-meat.  It was not flattering to 90% of the wearers unless they were a Yoga or Aerobics instructor.  Mostly, it was just shameful and sad.  I see this in local footwear.
 

 

 
  Today at Lowe's, I saw a woman with alternating lengthened toes.  She was violently out-of-shape, back-fat in rolls.  To add to the spectacle, her open-toed sandals featured toes reminiscent of Baba-Yaga's home, gnarled like an ancient oak in a Scottish bog, clawing the ground for peat-moss and nutritional, decaying mud.  It was impossible to miss from space.  She was fat, and her feet were suffering from the fat-ness of her fat fat.  Her ankles overlapped her feet by a few inches and her heels, perfectly shown-off, were white and caked with dry skin, crushing under her weight.  She had a scar on one of her ankles, probably to place titanium strut-support internally.  The Toes.  Oh Lord Sweet Jesus.  Each toenail belayed a tale of its own.  Each had it's own story.  Some were shaped like a fine sail from a schooner made of dogshit.  Some were squared with unknown disease dirt crudded deeply under the nail for later safe-keeping.  One turned a boy to stone when he glanced at it, and Lowe's employees put him in the garden area to sell as a lawn ornament.

  This is not uncommon.  I see a lot of fracked-up feet, and NO ONE wants to see that.  You have ugly feet, most likely.  Do you want to see Ron Jeremy walking around with a tapeworm hanging 3 feet out his arse?  No?  Then knock it off!  It's the same amount of vulgar, and you're a freak that should hide in basements where "maw" can throw meat down at'chya, hidden from the townsfolk.
  You're not at the beach, folks!  My rule is that if there's sand, you can wear SANDals.  If there's no sand, forget it.  Sand plus sandals makes sense.  Now, there's a slight caveat that if you're at an enclosed pool-party then it's okay during the time you're at the pool area, then you must put on shoes once you're done.  Some pool-parties have barbecue and such with beach chairs, so it's sort of a beach illusion so it's okay.  Any kind of island/beach theme party thing going on allows sandal-wear to complete the beach-party ensemble, otherwise, wear something else.

    Now if you insist on defying me, and run the risk of persecution, then I give you this last warning, unless your feet are model-quality, I will hunt you down and jeer, and lead others into a jeer-session.  Your being in-numbers will not help.  I shall, indeed, jeer, and create a jeer-mob against your fugly feet of death.  If you have to go to a place to have your feet "scraped" from time to time, it's a good indicator you should never show society your feet, lest you be chased out of town by the villagers while you scream, "I am not an animal, I am a human being!" 
 

  I want you all to have massive self-consciousness against your ugly, nasty, gnarly feet.   It's NOT okay to show them off.  It's gross.  You're gross.   Hide them from God, lest he smite you in embarrassment of creating such a freak!  God is ashamed of your feet more-so than the platypus!  BEGONE!  I rebuke thee!  Idiots.  You're ugly.  Stupid.  Fag.


  Unless you're Piper Fawn.  Then it's okay.



Piper Fawn's feet.. acceptable.  She's okay, not you.   (note* hard to get a rated-G image)... ahem..

Interstellar Overdrive from the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn